


Sabbatical Returns

by jessebee



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anakin is a smart little cookie, Angst with a Happy Ending, Characters Talking Out Crap What Should Have Happened Sooner, Friendship, Hugs, M/M, Obi-Wan Needs a Hug, Qui-Gon Lives, Qui-Gon Wises Up, Relationship Discussions, Reunions, Slash, because I said so, graphic descriptions of cuddling, kiss meme fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-15 18:24:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13619076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jessebee/pseuds/jessebee
Summary: Qui-Gon has been on retreat, but he's finally coming home.  Obi-Wan has no intention of greeting him.(or: Obi&Ani Explain It All To You)





	Sabbatical Returns

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sanerontheinside](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanerontheinside/gifts).



*

 

_There is no passion, there is serenity._

Serenity, **_hells_**.

Obi-Wan was currently experiencing a level of irritable trepidation utterly unbecoming of a Padawan, never mind of a Knight. The fact that he knew in precise, excruciating detail the completely unreasonable reasons for said irritable trepidation did not help to alleviate, or release, those feelings one damn bit.

Anakin was looking at him surreptitiously sideways, giving him what Obi-Wan privately thought of as his possibly-padawan-to-be's “stink-eye,” which Obi-Wan was not going to ignore anymore today, thank you _very_ much. “What is it, Anakin?”

“Nothin'.”

“Anakin.”

For that, he got the full-on stink-eye now, rather than the sneaky version. “Okay, then, you asked: you're mad.”

Obi-Wan would not huff. “I am not.”

“Are too.”

“Am – ” Obi-Wan snapped his mouth closed. He would _not_ get into a slanging match with a _ten-year-old_ , either, for Force's sake. He'd handle this like the adult he was. “Why do you think I'm mad?”

If eye-rolling had a sound, Anakin was making it. “Maybe 'cause you're bleeding it all over the place?”

“I am _not_ – ” Shash, there he went again.

A quick check of his shields and – Double-shash. Only a small chink, but add to that a Force-dynamo like Anakin Skywalker and it was a damn good thing they were still in his quarters.

“And 'cause if you weren't, then we wouldn't be _here_ , we'd be out _there_ , at the landing pad, waitin' for Master Qui-Gon's shuttle to get in,” Anakin finished triumphantly, with the cut and dried logic of the very young.

Obi-Wan closed his eyes. Breathed. “It is your free time still, is it not?” he stated quietly. Through his teeth, but quietly. “You may certainly go to the landing pads if you wish. There is no reason for you to be here with me.”

A shivery little stab in the Force as the boy's annoyance changed to hurt. “But… ”

Shash, shash, _shash_.

Obi-Wan opened his eyes and was promptly pinned and punctured by wide, wounded sky-blue ones.

“But I _wanna_ – I _want_ to be with you, and with Master Qui-Gon! And you want to be with him too, I _know_ you do, and I don't – ” A gulp, and Anakin pulled himself back under control, mostly – something Obi-Wan knew the boy had been working hard on in the year and a half he'd been at the Temple. “I don't understand, Obi-Wan! You love him – ”

Obi-Wan swallowed.

“ – and he loves you too, and why'd he have to go away on the sab – saba – ”

“Sabbatical.”

“ – sababicle at all? I know why _you_ went away, you got sent on those missions and stuff, 's'what Jedi knights do, but not together? Why can't you go together?”

And just like that, the thread of tension stitching up Obi-Wan's anger finally frayed and snapped, releasing it at last into the Force and revealing the tired, aching loneliness that had been under it all along. “Anakin,” he said, on a soft sigh, and before he could second-guess himself he held out his hands.

He got them both settled comfortably on the couch, that enormous thing of Qui-Gon's that had already been venerable when Obi-Wan had been a new padawan. They faced each other, Obi-Wan turned sideways, one leg curled beneath him and his shoulder braced against the back cushions, and Anakin sitting cross-legged, the seat being more than wide enough for him.

“That's part of what Jedi Knights do, too, Ani.”

“Be lonely?” A distinct touch of outrage in the young voice.

Obi-Wan shook his head, the ends of his hair drifting ticklishly across his cheeks and neck. “Learn to be alone, to work alone. To learn who we are and become what we can be – what we must be – on our own, when we have only ourselves and the Force to rely on. Beside, we are never truly apart; we are all one and together, always, in the Force.”

Anakin looked decidedly skeptical. “I guess. But that's not like _being_ _with_ somebody.”

Obi-Wan had to smile, although it hurt a little. “No, it's not. But it's necessary. I'd been with Master Qui-Gon for so long; twelve years. Half my life. I needed to learn… I had to truly understand who I am without him.”

The skeptical look remained, so Obi-Wan poked a playful finger into the front of Anakin's tunics. “And without you, too, my little tagalong,” he added, making the child giggle.

“You said I could!” Anakin protested, grinning.

“When you're not in classes and such, yes, I did, and I'm always happy to see you.”

And he nearly always was, too – Anakin was like a brilliant beam of sunlight and Obi-Wan had found himself needing that, somewhat to his own surprise. Warm and willing and kind, much more open than a usual Jedi youngling.  With streaks of cloud and some storms of fear and insecurity, to be sure, but Qui-Gon had been right: Anakin needed to be trained.

And Obi-Wan, to his own increasing disquiet, was finding himself wondering if, perhaps, maybe it was he, and not Qui-Gon Jinn, who needed to do that training.

“Okay,” Anakin said happily, before he sobered. “But that doesn't explain about Master Qui-Gon's going away. He's gotta – he has to know himself by now, right? He's really old.”

Obi-Wan choked, caught somewhere between outrage and irreverent hilarity. “Anakin!”

“Well, he is! And that's good, right? 'Cause he knows so much!” And Anakin really did mean it as a compliment, that was obvious in the Force.

“His knowledge is indeed amazing. I was unspeakably fortunate to have him as my Master and you will be as well, if it's the will of the Force that you become his padawan,” Obi-Wan said, and ignored the little feeling of _wrong_ that accompanied that idea. “But try not to say it quite like that, all right?”

“Okay,” Anakin agreed, clearly not understanding but willing to go along for the moment and instead circling back to his main question like a krayt dragon after a nice, juicy bantha. “But why did he go? I mean, couldn't he have finished healing up here? And why couldn't we visit him or anything? They said it's 'cause he needed peace and quiet and all, and I know it was pretty bad, but – ”

He bit his lip and looked up at Obi-Wan through the fringe of darkening blond hair that needed a trim.  Again. “That didn't feel like the real reason, or not all of it. Was it?”

If it had been Obi-Wan Kenobi asking that question of Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan thought with no little amount of irony, the answer would be the standard one, designed to teach: “What does the Force tell you?”

But this wasn't a normal, crèche-raised Jedi youngling. 

And he certainly wasn't Master Jinn.  He was just himself: Obi-Wan Kenobi, barely a year and a half a full-fledged Knight. And he needed to say what he felt was right. “I don't know, Anakin.”

Blue eyes got wider, questioning, and Obi-Wan gave in to the urge to sigh again, very softly. “I know what they told you, and what they told me when I returned, but of course Master Qui-Gon had been gone more than a month by then. And I know what he has said in his letters to me.” The few he'd received, which had said little of any consequence and had been text only, no holos; not even the sight of his master's – his former master's face.

“And the Force doesn't tell you? You know – stuff?”

Obi-Wan couldn't help the momentary grin. “It would be nice if it worked like that, but Master Yoda I am not.”

An answering grin and another quick giggle: there wasn't a youngling or Initiate alive who hadn't poked fun, in varying degrees, at the Order GrandMaster's disregard for standard Basic syntax.

“I believe that you're right, Anakin, in that that was _a_ reason, but it wasn't the _only_ reason.”

Anakin leaned forward. “So what'd they tell you?”

Obi-Wan paused, considering how best to phrase things. “That he truly did need both rest and therapy if he was ever to recover completely, enough to return to field duty. Much more rest than he'd ever get here on Coruscant, in the middle of everything. But even past the injury, he was – tired.”

Anakin looked like he'd say something and then subsided, listening.

“The kind of work a field-mission Knight does is – wearing, even with our Force abilities to support us. And Qui-Gon has been in the field for a very long time: twelve years just with me, and for decades before that. And we don't get much in the way of long rest times; the Jedi Order is not large and the Republic – and the galaxy – are.”

Anakin considered this. “So he really needed a vacation, huh? Even if he hadta get stabbed to get it?”

Obi-Wan swallowed again.

“ _Not_ the way to get it, though,” Anakin finished, but still thinking hard about something.

“Agreed,” Obi-Wan said, “and you can be sure that I intend to tell him that.” He waited a minute, watching the virtual mouse-droid circling behind that little-boy face. “What else is running around in that busy brain of yours?”

Anakin looked back up at him. “You said you gotta work alone for a while, right? You're not supposed to count on your teacher for stuff?”

Obi-Wan nodded.

“So, Master Qui-Gon doesn't need to be alone, but you do, so maybe that's part of why he went away? So you could come back to the Temple sometimes and see me and everybody else, right? 'Cause you wouldn't see him, so it'd be okay.”

 **Force**.

It was nearly like being struck by lightning, and as Obi-Wan had, in fact, been struck by actual lightning once, he could say that for a fact. Obi-Wan closed his eyes as the last pieces finally, finally settled into place.

 _Of course_ that was what Qui-Gon had done, and Obi-Wan was three times a blind idiot for not seeing it himself. That was precisely the sort of self-sacrificing, idealistic, _bone-headed_ stunt that Senior Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn _would_ do if he thought it best for his padawan, whether the padawan – former padawan – thought it best or not.

Obi-Wan rubbed at his forehead. Oh, he was going to have _words_ with Qui-Gon Jinn. “I think you may well be right, Ani.”

“As a matter of fact, he is.”

Obi-Wan jerked around.

Qui-Gon was leaning against the wall on the far side of their common room. He looked nearly as he ever had, although there was far more gray and silver than Obi-Wan recalled, shining in his beard and long hair. Dressed in his familiar cloak, arms tucked into his sleeves, he looked well, and whole, and serenely unconcerned that he'd just shocked his former student out of breath and possibly sanity.

Obi-Wan hadn't felt him. Or no, that wasn't right. Obi-Wan _had_ felt him, he realized now, but Qui-Gon's Force-Presence was so completely and utterly familiar to him, signaling safety and rightness, that the gradual increase of it hadn't registered in Obi-Wan's conscious mind.

Frozen in place, Obi-Wan stared.

Anakin had no such trouble. With a happy whoop, the boy bounced off the couch and pelted across the room – only to haul up short in the middle of it and compose himself, and execute a nearly perfect, formal Initiate's bow. “I am happy to see you, Master Jinn,” he said, voice vibrating with suppressed excitement.

Qui-Gon straightened and solemnly bowed back. “I am pleased to see you as well, Initiate Skywalker.” Then he dropped easily to one knee, smiling, and held out his arms.

Anakin shot forward into them and immediately half-vanished in the folds of Qui-Gon's cloak. Holding him, Qui-Gon rose back to his feet just as easily and actually swung the boy around once before hugging him close, and Obi-Wan was reminded, sharply, that his master and Anakin had had time – close to five months, in fact – to get to know each other with neither help nor hindrance from new-made Knight Kenobi.

Qui-Gon shifted the boy to one arm and then held out the other one, hand open. “Obi-Wan?” His name, spoken in that rich voice, the faint burr Obi-Wan had not heard in person for almost a year and a half. “It's harder to greet you properly from all the way over there, my knight.”

Released from his paralysis by his master's voice, Obi-Wan rose smoothly up off the couch, walked across the room and directly into Qui-Gon's embrace.

He dug one arm around Qui-Gon's waist beneath the cloak, just as he'd loved to do when he'd been much younger, before age and training and dignity had made it all but impossible.  He pressed himself close to the older man's lean form, holding and being held in return, buried in warmth and smell, face  against Qui-Gon's shoulder and his forehead finding the ridge of Qui-Gon's collarbone through the older man's tunics, feeling him.

Feeling the health returned, the strength of the arms that tucked him close and held Anakin up with no signs of strain. Feeling the double-thump of Qui-Gon's heartbeat, the sound that had eased Obi-Wan's nightmares and visions and anchored him, anchored his life and his training, sheltered him until he was ready to fly on his own. Feeling the beat of the great heart that had pushed him out, perhaps reluctantly but nonetheless counting the greater good worth more than any possible damage, to make sure that Obi-Wan _**did**_ fly.

Feel this.

Feel him. Feel it all, so bright in the Force.

_/“Trust your feelings, you must.”/_

Yes.

Obi-Wan raised his head and leaned back just enough to look up into those astonishingly blue eyes.

“I'm quite upset with you, you know. In fact, I am furious,” he said grittily, lacing the fingers of one hand through silvered hair. “Don't ever do that again,” he finished flatly, and pulled Qui-Gon down and kissed him.

Shock and desire rebounded through the Force and Qui-Gon's mouth opened against his, kissing Obi-Wan back for long, precious seconds before the older man abruptly pulled back, eyes wide and startled.

“Ew!” Anakin stated emphatically, and Qui-Gon twitched. “You didn't say there was gonna be mush, Obi-Wan!”

“You might be wise to get down then, Anakin, because there's going to be more,” Obi-Wan murmured, vastly amused.

Qui-Gon made a little noise, almost a cough, deep in his throat. “Is there.”

“There is if I have anything to say about it. Which I do.” Obi-Wan's gaze never left Qui-Gon's. Padawan Kenobi would possibly have backed down by now, deferring to his master. Knight Kenobi was doing no such thing.

“Down you get, Ani,” Qui-Gon said softly. “Show me how your flips are progressing.”

A wriggle, a twist, and a push through the Force, and Anakin was on the ground, landing neatly for all that Obi-Wan could see from the corner of his eye.

“Very nice,” Qui-Gon murmured.

Anakin snickered. “Yeah, tell me that again when you're really lookin' at me! I'm going now Obi-Wan, Master Qui-Gon, I'm really really glad you're back I got all kinds of stuff to tell you after you n' Obi-Wan get done kissin' okay byyye!”

The door clicked shut behind him.

Obi-Wan flicked the lock closed with the Force and flicked on the “Do Not Disturb On Pain Of Death And Dismemberment” notice as well for good measure, and listened to the sound of Qui-Gon breathing.

“He is happier and his Force-signature much more settled than when I left,” Qui-Gon said. His big hands came to rest at Obi-Wan's waist; the contact seared through both layers of Obi-Wan's tunics and his sash. “You are doing well with him.”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “His teachers are, and Anakin is doing well with himself; I merely provide the occasional ear and sympathetic shoulder and sometimes a trip to Dex's. Don't change the subject.”

“Which is?” Qui-Gon asked, deliberately light.

“I am _upset_ with you, Master,” Obi-Wan reminded him. “ _Don't_ do that again.”

“I shall endeavor to never again need extensive recovery time after being – impaled, by rampaging Sith.”

Obi-Wan pursed his mouth and gave a light tug to the locks of hair still twined around his fingers. “Not what I mean. Don't leave like that again, without a word. Do you have the least idea how much I missed you?” _/How much that hurt?/_

Qui-Gon seemed, for one of the few times in Obi-Wan's memory, to have no words.

Obi-Wan did. Important words, and he'd say the most important of them first.

“I love you,” he stated baldly, and felt Qui-Gon start. “As my Master and teacher, and as a man, hopefully, before either of us leaves these rooms again. I love you in Force and spirit and mind, and in body as well.  Very soon now, in fact, if you're willing. I've wanted you since I was seventeen: a year out on the ragged fringes of civilized space hasn't changed that.”

“Obi-Wan – ”

“Sssh,” and he dared to stretch up and plant another kiss, soft and too quick, on Qui-Gon's mouth. The mustache tickled; he'd always wondered if it would. “'Ask me after you're Knighted,' you said then, and you were right: I – we – it would have been wrong, then.

“But you wear my braid around your wrist now.” And hadn't Obi-Wan been thrilled to see it there?

“You felt I was ready for the Trials even though I did not, and again you were right. And I know it wasn't really for Anakin's sake; I understood that long ago. But this – ” he tapped his fingers against the red-gold coil of hair around Qui-Gon's wrist “ – means **_you don't get to choose_** for me anymore, and you didn't get to choose from the moment you severed it. How _arrogant_ of you to decide, then, that I wouldn't be able to do what I needed to without you enforcing the issue. In the most painful way possible.”

Qui-Gon was shaking his head, the motion tugging a little at the hair Obi-Wan still held. “That wasn't the reason, Obi-Wan, or not all it. Not even the most part of it, truthfully. I did not doubt your ability to do what needed to be done.  But I did doubt mine.”

Obi-Wan stared at him.

“You were the largest and the very best part of my life for twelve years, dear one. And we had just nearly lost each other, twice, to my own stubbornness and over-confidence. I came within a hair's-breadth of breaking my promise to you to see you knighted, because of the aforementioned rampaging Sith.” Qui-Gon gave him a quick, crooked smile, and the hands at Obi-Wan's waist squeezed briefly.

“In my recovery, especially those first months after you were sent out, I wanted almost nothing more than I wanted to see you and feel your Presence. You were – _you_ _are_ – an ache under my skin such as I've rarely felt before. I had little confidence in my ability not to press myself back into your life the first time I saw you, and yet that would have continued the damage I'd already done to you – no, sssh – ” Qui-Gon said, touching a finger briefly across Obi-Wan's mouth when Obi-Wan would have said – something.

“I could see no way other than to remove myself altogether, as painful as that was, would be for both of us, and hope that I could earn the blessing of your forgiveness one more time.”

Obi-Wan found that he was slowly shaking his head now, lips parted in shock and exasperation and the helpless love of years, and a few other things it was going to take meditation to sort out fully. That was – it was all just so, so perfectly _Qui-Gon_ , that it hurt.  The last of the ache in Obi-Wan's chest eased, finally releasing with his next breath.  “Oh, Master.  When have I ever NOT forgiven you?”

Qui-Gon cupped Obi-Wan's face and leaned forward, resting his forehead against Obi-Wan's as a long, long breath escaped him. “I love you, Obi-Wan,” he rumbled finally, the words warm soft things in the tiny space between them, and tilted his head to fit his mouth to Obi-Wan's.

There was that hesitation of first contact, the inevitable avoidance of noses; and then it was easy and sweet, and wonderful. Obi-Wan was in no way a virgin, he'd had his small share of lovers: mostly friends, some Jedi, a few not, and one mistake who'd just been attracted to the idea of fucking a Jedi, however briefly. And always there had been the awkwardness, small or not so much, of bodies or spirits or both that didn't quite match, no matter the species or how good of a friend the other was.

There was none of that here, and the sheer lack of it was making Obi-Wan a little giddy. They _fit_ , he and Qui-Gon, somehow: they were matching up like the components of a lightsabre, physical and Force-ful, in a way Obi-Wan had only touched in fantasies.

He pressed closer, half aware that he'd slid both hands into Qui-Gon's hair now and was nudging at the other man's lips, licking lightly at the hard-smooth of teeth, asking for entry. And got it, his tongue slipping into the warmth of Qui-Gon's mouth.

Qui-Gon tasted vaguely like tooth cleaner and a hint of tea, and mostly like himself, a unique flavor Obi-Wan was instantly addicted to. He quested for more, gently at first and then with increasing fervor as he was met with equal enthusiasm from Qui-Gon. How long they stood there, losing themselves in touch and taste, Obi-Wan wasn't sure, but when Qui-Gon finally broke the kiss and looked down at him, the expression on that craggy face was everything Obi-Wan had never quite dared to dream of.

“You want me,” Obi-Wan breathed, thrilled and still that tiny bit amazed even as the blatant desire in Qui-Gon's aura and the Force made that want perfectly, perfectly clear.

“I've wanted you for rather longer than I'm comfortable with,” Qui-Gon said wryly.

The admission ran another, hotter thrill through Obi-Wan's already beginning-to-ache body and he smiled, slow and wide and quite deliberately wicked. “Let's not have you wait any longer, then, shall we? I wouldn't want to be – rude.”

The light in Qui-Gon's eyes flared higher. “On the contrary. I think actually I should like, very much, to see what you look like when you're being rude.”

 

*

 

“So,” Obi-Wan said lazily, somewhen later, rubbing his cheek against warm, moist skin. His throat felt a little rough, but all in a good cause. “How did 'rude' look?”

A deep chuckle from his bedmate and pillow. “Utterly scandalous. Something best never shown to anyone but your lover.” Another sound vibrated through Qui-Gon's chest and tickled along Obi-Wan's skin, like the purring of some large, extremely pleased feline. “Perhaps I should consider another long, solitary retreat, if this is the return greeting it gets me.”

Obi-Wan raised his head and blew a few tangled wisps of hair out of his eyes, and pinned his former master with a glare that was only half-teasing at best. “Don't. You. Dare.”

 

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Sanerontheinside's kiss meme request on tumblr: _18\. Kisses because I missed you and you really shouldn’t stay away so long._ Saner, I am so very, very sorry.
> 
> This story brought to life by vast quantities of medication. Actual words and such are blamed on steroid-induced insomnia and a fine dusting of hysteria, brought on by sneezing, coughing, and the Thunderstorm From Hell. Apparently I write sorta angsty shit when I'm sick; who'd'a thunk it?
> 
> Many thanks to Merry_Amelie for the fine-toothed comb looksee-over, and to culturevulture73 who still puts up with me :-)


End file.
